Inside The Fire
by Artemisdesari
Summary: One Shot, set after 4.22 following events as they might not play out, Dean/Cas. Dean knows that Lucifer will come for him one day.


_One shot, I should try to write a proper fic, but I don't have the concentration to do it these days, and my convention killed me. I swear that I did not intend for this to turn out Dean/Cas, it was supposed to be a bit of a musing that evolved somewhat, or devolved depending on your opinion. On that note, don't like it, don't read it, flames will be used to light my BBQ._

_**Disclaimer:** If I owned them, this would be cannon. All I own is a photo, one that I am rather fond of and that contains a cerain hug that I completely adore beyond all things._

Inside The Fire.

The Apocalypse is coming, Dean knows this with the same level of certainty that applies to his assumption that Lucifer will eventually come for him. It may not be today or tomorrow, it may even not be for several years while Dean is kept busy fighting against the tide of disasters that will build up and slowly begin to destroy mankind and drown what little true, _decent_ humanity there is left in the world. Sooner or later, though, Lucifer will come and Dean will _kill_ or _be_ killed and the world as he has always known it will end.

Once again the other hunters are mad at them, Dean found this out when he regained consciousness at Bobby's place with no idea how he had gotten there and the sound of Bobby's highly aggravated shouting echoing through the house and quite probably the salvage yard as well. Castiel was there too, still will not say how he managed to get away from the armies of Heaven, just that he did and that he had found both Winchesters unconscious and brought them to a place of relative safety. Relative, because _nothing_ is really safe anymore, not with the freaking _devil_ on the loose and everything.

Besides which, it is not even like they have any real allies to fall back on anymore, aside from Bobby and Castiel. Other hunters are blaming them for the situation, which, in all honesty, is true, what with Dean starting the process and Sam finishing it, even though both had the best of intentions and the road to Hell and all that. Castiel, as much help as he could have been, is now number two on Heaven's most wanted list, only second because, again, _Lucifer is free_ and the angels have the slightly more pressing concern of _winning_. Added to that, Heaven does not really much care what happens to Sam anymore, they are more concerned with grabbing Dean and putting him on a leash so that he can be used to kill Lucifer when _they_ want him to, not when he is ready to, before the world _burns_ and half of humanity is wiped out as the angels sit off to one side and gloat about it, and Dean is worried that they will resort to threatening Sam's life to bring him under control. As if the entirety of humanity and Heaven was not enough, Hell is out to get them as well, Sam and Dean _both_. Like the angels, they want the world to burn, but they want it to _keep_ burning for all of eternity while they are left free to enjoy it.

So this means that once again it is Sam and Dean against the world, with the occasional back up from Bobby and now Castiel. The difference this time is that Sam is an emotional wreck, torn up with guilt and pain and going half mad with the agony of his withdrawal from the demon blood that he had so willingly ingested with the very best of intentions. Add to that the very simple fact that Dean is still broken, in pieces from the things that he has seen and done and not really able to come to terms with it all in any meaningful way. He still sleeps under a worn leather jacket with his clothes and his boots on, is still ready to run at a moments notice, though whether it is to the most recent crisis or away from the images that still haunt his dreams, Dean cannot be certain, does not want to be certain. Only knows that their only allies in this are a hunter with too many years and too many fights behind him and an angel who could be dragged away and slaughtered at the drop of a hat. Business as usual.

However, Dean is painfully aware that they cannot afford to hide forever in the not so safe house that belongs to the closest thing that either of the boys has ever really had to a father, there is a world out there that needs saving. He is also aware that Sam is still in no real condition to go out there and fight yet, that Sam still has seizures every few days because his body is screaming for that which Dean, Bobby and Sam are _all_ denying it. Castiel still gives them updates, fluttering in and out repeatedly everyday, gradually getting more and more _restless_ as the days go by and turn into weeks of waiting and watching and not being able to _do a damn thing_. Dean is not sure which part of all of that freaks him out more, the fact that he is _really_ beginning to enjoy the angel's company, or the way that Castiel is behaving, because since he turned his back on Heaven, since he scraped his way past an archangel and all the Host of Heaven, Castiel has begun to show an increasing range of emotions, emotions that Dean had never imagined that he could feel. While _both_ of these things bother Dean, what bothers him more than anything else is _where_ Castiel is getting the information from, and so he questions, he pushes and he _presses_ and Castiel remains annoyingly closed lipped about it. This makes Dean push more, push _harder_, until finally Castiel relents, though whether it is at Dean's insistence or that of the angel's source, the hunter cannot be sure.

What he _does_ know is that this new angel is the last thing that he had expected her to be, accustomed as he is to Castiel's confidence and the sense of power that he seems to exude even when he is overshadowed by his superiors. This angel, who Castiel introduces as Sariel, is quiet, almost _shy_, barely opening her mouth to speak and keeping her eyes down turned and uncomfortable when Dean _does_ meet her eyes. When she _does_ talk to Castiel it is in the whispered, hushed, tones that Dean would more commonly associate with a four year old child. For some reason, he finds that he does not like her, in the irrational, wanting to rip her lungs out, kind of way that he has only really experienced with other angels because they gave him _reason_ to feel it. He does not like the way that her hesitant hands brush against Castiel's terrible trenchcoat, the way that even when she talks to Dean, her eyes flicker up to Castiel like his opinion is the only one that matters, that she cares more about his thoughts than Dean's.

It takes a few days for Dean to latch onto something to dislike about her that is not quite so irrational as the touching of hands to clothing and the meeting of brown eyes with blue. What he really dislikes, he decides, is the way that Castiel defers to her. The angel who was starting to find himself, a _new_ self that was not dictated by others who sought only to use him to their own ends. He is falling back into an old habit, with an ease that is terrifying to Dean, because Castiel follows any order that she gives without a second thought. Not that she gives him many, probably does not have many to give if Dean thinks about it, but Castiel still defers to her and that still upsets Dean so he will take it as a cause to dislike her, along with the apparent willingness that Cas has to _touch_ her as well, much more happily than he will touch Dean and that sits all wrong and Dean has to wonder _why_ he craves Castiel's touch in the first place. Cannot say why all this stuff about her bothers him, or just does not _want_ to, would like to know why, but suspects that part of him already knows the answer to that as well. Either way, when she leaves he is relieved and worried in equal measure. Relieved because Castiel can go back to thinking for himself and worried because what if she were not all she seemed? What if she betrays them and brings all of Heaven down on their collective asses before they are ready, not that they will _ever_ be ready. Castiel trusts her, Dean cannot, he has been betrayed one too many times.

Castiel knows, of course he knows, has to know, that Dean does not like her. He does not comment or pass judgement on it, but every so often Dean can see it in the way that he looks at them both and it makes the hunter feel a twinge of shame. It is not the way that the angel is, though, to speak badly of a person or thing and even with the new emotions that he is still struggling to deal with, he does not share his thoughts, a hard learnt lesson at the hands of Heaven that has stayed with him even though he is far beyond that point and that problem now anyway, what with his recent defiance and everything. Still, Castiel knows Dean, knows that there are simply some things that are not voiced around the man and trying to talk him into liking someone is one of them, so Castiel hold his tongue and keeps his own council. Instead, he teaches the three hunters how to stop angels, to proof a room or a car against them, how to hide themselves so that only Cas can find them through the link that he has with Dean, the link that rests in a raised scar on Dean's arm. It is not easy but at the end of the fifth week since Lucifer's rise, Sam is well enough to start travelling, Dean's latest tattoo is healed enough to actually be useful and they know how to ward a room again every angel _except_ Castiel and Sariel, who Dean grudgingly allowed to be able to step through after Castiel insisted. Loudly.

_Still_ Dean has not figured out the real reason that he dislikes Sariel. Tells himself that it really is for all of the reasons he has come up with and knows that is simply not true. Does not work out the real reason for it until he and Sam return to their motel room late one morning, bloodied, sore and weary with grief and pain and anger, desperate and remorseful and just wishing that for once, these days, they could get there in time to actually _help_ someone instead of pick up the pieces. He does not really figure it out until he sees them stood in the middle of the room, together, hands clasped and brown eyes staring so intently into blue that it is like there is nothing else in the world but them. They are silent and intense and a wave of jealousy sweeps him angrily forward, heated words on his lips but still they are oblivious to them. Not only do they not acknowledge the brothers as Sam yanks Dean away, but neither responds when both call their names, they are too lost in one another, and as tempted as Dean is to fling them apart, to grab Castiel and growl _mine_, he is almost afraid to touch them, because the air is thick with power and the gaze is too intense.

"Close your eyes," Castiel grates out finally, when the silence has become so thick that it has gone through uncomfortable, past unwelcoming and is headed swiftly down the road marked Hell. Both Winchesters, however, seem too startled to obey and even if Castiel does not turn to look at them, he knows it and he speaks again. "Dean, please," and there is a strain to his voice that Dean has never heard before, never wants to hear again and so he obeys. Closes his eyes and flings an arm over his face as the room is flooded with a light so bright that it hurts and he can hear a woman screaming.

When he finally lowers his arm, Castiel is on the floor, conscious but stunned and Sariel, Sariel is gone. The vessel is still there, unconscious, but Dean knows that the angel is no longer there and as he all but drags Castiel to one of the beds, Sam picks up the girl, now looking truly tiny and delicate in a way that she had not before, tells Dean that he is taking her to a hospital and it is all that Dean can do to nod, because his focus is on Castiel and the angel is mumbling in a language that Dean does not recognise. It is not until the door clicks closed and they are alone that the angel comes back to himself, his lips still and he blinks, that familiar confusion on his face as he looks at Dean and that sign of normal makes Dean's heart lift and soar and kicks another part of that unknown and unwanted emotion into play, a part that he _can_ identify and does not want to, because that means that another part of him is broken and he has to conclude that he was not put together right when he came back from Hell.

It takes a week for Castiel to recover from whatever it was that Sariel did, but it becomes clear very quickly that it has had an effect that Castiel had not anticipated. The angel is stronger now, blazing through demons like they are nothing more than an insignificant insect, even those that used to be more difficult. The power should scare Dean, in the same way that is scares Sam. The power has the exact opposite effect and more than once Dean has been forced to lock himself in the bathroom and take a cold shower. So he starts to avoid the angel as much as possible, reasons that if he does not face the problem it will go away. Except it does not, it gets _worse_ and Castiel begins to get annoyed with Dean's avoidance tactics, has something important that he needs to tell him and Dean will not sit still long enough for the angel to do just that.

Distracted as both are by the situation as it is, dancing around each other in this way, it is perhaps inevitable that one or the other of them would be caught out during a fight, caught short and overwhelmed and in need of aid. Dean tells himself this as he slashes through the throat of a demon, a demon poised over Castiel with a silver sword that hisses and burns at the demons hand even as it clenches it's teeth against the pain and raises the sword to deliver a killing blow. Dean tries to convince himself that the blind panic at the thought that Castiel might have been killed is natural, that they have become close enough for it to be warranted, but when Castiel thanks him later, Dean cannot restrain the anger that floods him. Anger at the fear of losing the angel and even though he knows that it is not that angel's fault, he has him slammed against a wall so hard that even Dean's teeth rattle. The human knows that if Castiel had not wanted to allow it, Dean would have smashed himself into a brick wall and probably broken several bones, but Castiel nearly always seems to know what Dean needs these days and if Dean needs to rage at Castiel to make himself feel better, Castiel will let him.

The word that fly from Dean's mouth are harsh, angry and above all else, they carry that fear that he does not want to acknowledge. The fear that Castiel will die. So he rages and he storms until finally he cannot anymore, cannot look at Castiel's wide blue eyes that hold an emotion that he most certainly should not see there, cannot continue to simply try and put his thoughts into words. So he pushes Castiel harder against the wall, presses their lips together in a hard, needy and downright desperate kiss that all but steals his breath away and leave Castiel dark eyed and gasping for more as Dean glares down at him.

"You're mine, Cas," he growls, stealing another kiss, hardly noticing that Sam has hightailed it out of the room as soon as he had realised that Dean was on the war path. "_Mine_ and you don't get to die, am I clear?" Dean can feel himself coming apart at the seams, every part of him screaming for that which he has been denying himself and it seems that Castiel is through with holding back, through with letting Dean do what he needs to get the anger out, because there is a passion in the angels eyes and a purpose in his movements and a fury behind the lips on Dean's that drive the hunter wild for something more than fists and words of rage, something that Castiel is more than willing to give him.

So the weeks go on and they fight and they search and when they can get rid of Sam, there is sex, hot and needy, soft and loving, comforting even if it is not entirely normal. Dean knows that soon, and getting ever nearer, ever sooner, he will have to face Lucifer, will have to kill Lucifer. He knows that this messed up existence of his, with his brother and angelic lover will all come to an end in one way or another, does not want it to, does not have a choice in the matter. There is only one thing that he has to make certain of. When Lucifer dies it must be by Dean's hand alone, no other angels involved, no demons either. Because should a man, a single, powerless, human man kill Lucifer, the apocalypse is averted, for good, no Hell on Earth, no unending Paradise. Just Earth, the way that it has always been, if a little more broken than before and this is what Sariel died to pass on to them, this tiny piece of information that makes all of the difference. Humanity is resilient, it will fix itself and Dean will deal with the rest when it comes.

For the moment, though, just this moment, Lucifer has not come and Sam is in the library researching. Dean and Castiel have some time on their hands.

Fin.

_Reviews are little Castiels that fly above our heads and mini Deans under the bed. A small Sam in hand and a tiny John by the chair, a review that can show how much you care._

_Artemis_


End file.
